Hefner on the Topic of America’s Abundance of
Natural Gas

Hefner natural gas resource predictions

• 1977, March 1, Paper “Natural Gas Policy”: “500 to 1000 Tcf”
• 1978, June 25-29, Speech, Aspen Institute: “1500 Tcf and beyond”
• 1982, October 26, Speech, American Gas Association, Kansas City: “1400 Tcf”
• 1984, April 26, Testimony before Congress: “1000 to 1500”
• 1986, May, Presentation, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Austria: “1000 to 1500”
• 1993, December, Paper “New Thinking About Natural Gas,” USGS Professional Paper 1570: “3000 to 4000 Tcf”
• 2007, October 30-31, Speech, Oil & Money Conference, London: “3000 to 3500 Tcf”

Hefner early comments on natural gas abundance

• 1972, November 8, Congressional testimony: “There are vast remaining reserves to be exploited.”
• 1975, March 21, Congressional testimony: “…vast undeveloped lower 48 natural gas reserves.”
• 1976, January, Congressional testimony: “Let the competitive system work to encourage maximum development of natural gas, one of the most abundant sources of energy we have in the United States.”
• 1977, March 24, Congressional testimony: “I am convinced that vast quantities of deep onshore natural gas remain to be discovered…The vast potential onshore deep natural gas reserves will not be found in association with oil.”
• 1977, May 12 and May 24, Congressional testimonies: “National energy policy must operate to refocus United States resources toward the rapid development of the vast potential supplies of onshore natural gas.”
• 1977, June 13, Congressional testimony: “Vast amounts of natural gas remain to be discovered onshore America.”
• 1978, June 25-29, Speech, Aspen Institute: “We at GHK confidently predict that natural gas is the fuel of the future.”
• 1983, August 4, Speech, New York Society of Securities Analysts: “…the enormous economic benefits of abundant supplies of domestically produced natural gas.”
• 1983, April 14, Congressional testimony: “The nation…has abundant potential reserves…It is abundance of supply that is the only lasting and effective moderator of price.”
• 1984, April 26, Congressional testimony: “Production and use of the world’s most abundant, environmentally desirable and economic fuel [natural gas] is encouraged…It is no longer conscionable to base our national political and economic policies on any other understanding than that of an abundant North American, as well as global, natural gas resource base.”
• 1986, May, Presentation, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Austria: “Natural gas, a socially and environmentally benign, comparatively inexpensive, abundant and ubiquitous supply of energy, is awaiting development by both the developed and developing economies.”
• 1991, January 2, Article “Forecast ‘91”, Energy Daily: “The natural gas industry will continue to develop substantial new natural gas reserves, to consolidate and integrate.”
• 1993, December, Paper “New Thinking About Natural Gas,” USGS Professional Paper 1570: “I think that commercial natural gas is vastly more abundant than even our most optimistic estimates suggest.”